A freezer compartment of a refrigerator has an evaporator in its rear portion with a cover in front of the evaporator as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,335 to Griffin et al, for example. The cover is spaced from the top wall of the freezer compartment so that cold air may be circulated from the evaporator into the freezer compartment forward of the cover. Thus, the evaporator cover is not a structural support member.
Accordingly, the evaporator cover of the aforesaid Griffin et al patent cannot have any shelf support mounted thereon. As a result, shelves have only previously been supported by supports attached to the side walls of the freezer compartment.
For example, a side ladder, which has slots to receive portions of a shelf, would be mounted on each of the side walls of the freezer compartment. This has required the shelf to extend the entire width of the freezer compartment. When a portion of the freezer compartment is occupied by an ice maker, for example, utilization of adjustable shelves has been very limited in that they could be disposed in only that portion of the freezer compartment beneath the bottom of the ice maker.
The shelf support system of the present invention is capable of enabling split cantilever shelves to be utilized in the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. Thus, adjustable shelves can be disposed throughout the portion of the freezer compartment having no ice maker There also can be at least one adjustable shelf in the portion of the freezer compartment beneath the ice maker.
To utilize split cantilever shelves within the freezer compartment, it is necessary to provide a center ladder, which has slots to receive portions of a shelf, to support one portion of each shelf. That is, any shelf in the portion of the freezer compartment having no ice maker would be supported by one of the side ladders and the center ladder and any shelf beneath the ice maker would be supported by the other side ladder and the center ladder. It should be understood that the shelf support system also is utilized in a freezer compartment having no ice maker.
The shelf support system of the present invention utilizes a unique support arrangement for the center ladder, which is disposed adjacent the evaporator cover. Notwithstanding that the evaporator cover is not a structural support member, the center ladder is positively supported adjacent thereto.
The shelf support system of the present invention also provides alignment of the slots in the center ladder with the slots in each of the side ladders. Thus, the split cantilever shelves may be easily supported by the shelf support system of the present invention.